Atropa Belladonna~ Raven (a.k.a. Nightshade)'s Weblog ~
These are the ARCHIVES of February 2007. For more archives, visit the Archives page. For the current Weblog entries, check the Main page.
Atropa Belladonna| Fri, February 2, 2007 (1:50pm) I had a lovely morning. No, really - I mean it! In the sweet, relaxed, laid-back sense of "lovely" and not in the sarcastic sense, at all. It started way earlier than I like (getting up before the sun to make breakfast and get the kids off to school) but after that I had a little shopping to do, and I took Jasen with me, since he didn't have any classes this morning. We went to the pharmacy to pick up more asthma meds, and Jase was very well-behaved. He held my hand, and occupied himself with looking at a poster of a lady holding an apple. "Appo!" he said. And "Smi-yo!" (Yes, the lady had a smile). And then he pointed to her teeth, and eyes, and ear, and hair, and even shoulder, when I asked him to show me various body parts. He seemd so proud of himself, and gave me the sweetest toddler grins. Next, we went to IGA, where he helped me identify a number of food items as we shopped for supper ingredients. "Mik! Joooose! Nandy!" So we bought some milk and juice, but not the candy. And he made sweet eyes at the cashier as she rung the order through. He saved the best smiles for me, though. Then we went to Sherwood Park Mall, to pick up just one item: Photo corners. Unfortunately, the mall wasn't open yet (just after 9am) so we strolled together, and looked at things in store windows, and played by the fountain. He was very calm and well-behaved. He would look at things, and comment when he had the words, or nod sagely if I pointed things out to him ("That's a PlayStation, and those are console games!") and when we were rady to move on, I'd say "Hand!" and he'd smile and give me his hand with zero fuss. We walked at his pace, and since there wasn't anything to do, we'd stop and look at anything which caught his interest (the candy machines, a large potted plant, a display of shoes) and he seemed very pleased to be leading his Mom through the mall, instead of the other way around. I should also point out that he looked absolutely adorable, in his little knitted toque, with a blond lock of hair sticking out in a curl at his bangs. He also had his special dimple-smile going on, which can melt hearts, and contributes directly to global warming. We got all the way over to where McBain Camera should have been, only to find it closed for renovations. Grr. Oh well, it didn't really matter. Jase had put me in a very relaxed mood, and the 20 minutes we'd spent wandering hadn't been wasted at all. We'd had a nice time together. Nice enough to keep wandering a little longer. So we wandered back in the opposite direction, down to Zellers. Jase held my hand the whole way, and stroked the back of my hand with his thumb, as if to reassure himself that I was still there, while he took in all the sights. He made little sing-song noises to himself, and bobbed his head in rhythm. We wandered through the baby clothes and down through housewares, and back up through the crafts section - where they had a display on scrapbooking. And they had photo corners! So I picked up a box and we made our way to the cashier. No line-ups, since the store had just opened. We paid, took our purchase, and headed out onto the mall again. Jase happily led me back to the main doors, and asked me to tug his toque down tight before braving the freezing cold while trudging to our van. So, yeah... nothing really eventful or noteworthy. Just a lovely morning with my baby. The kind which you dream of someday having when you first find out you're pregnant, but that never seem to happen because you're too busy raising a real child. The kind which, when they do happen, you have to hold onto and treasure, because this - this is what it's all about. |
| Mon, February 5, 2007 (2:10pm) Vascillating I'm happy, because I have the kind of husband who can cook an awesome Sunday dinner, for 8 adults and 8 kids! Grumpy, though, because our dishwasher is broken. And that's a lot of dishes to hand wash. But my sister helped me do the dishes. Yay! She's in from Saskatchewan for a bit, and I got to see her 3 times in the past week. That's cool. But she's leaving again, today. :( She'll be back again next week. So that's okay. She'll be driving back to Sask in miserable weather, though. I don't like it when people have to drive with a baby on nasty roads. Fresh snow meant that I got to shovel the walks today, and I do like the exercise of shovelling. Grrrr! Once the walks were done, the weather turned to freezing rain, and now we're gonna have a coating of ice over our sidewalk. I shoulda left the walks alone. At least I can have a cup of hot tea, and relax in the afterglow of hard shovelling, while Connor works with his therapist. Did I mention we have a new therapist for Connor? YAY! Now I can work on the cleaning and housekeeping tasks which were ignored for the past 3 months while I did therapist duties. Gah. That's a lot of work. I crossed several big items off my To Do list in the past week, though. That felt good. But I also had to add a big item: Fix Dishwasher or Buy a New One. Grrr. Stupid Dishwasher, quitting before a big Sunday dinner. Mmmm, my husband cooked an awesome Sunday dinner. ... and so on. |
| Wed, February 7, 2007 (11:20pm) Google is my Midnight Lover I ditched my husband with the kids, and ran off with the babysitter tonight. It was his idea, in part. See, our sitter is a big Guy Gavriel Kay fan, and when she heard that he was in town doing a book signing tonight, she asked if she could rearrange our babysitting night so that she could go to the bookstore and meet him. But then it turned out that her daughter was having a miserable day and wouldn't be fit to bring to the bookstore, so she was going to call it off. I, on the other hand, really wanted to get out fo the house, and had even made plans to get a book signed for a friend (who is a GGK fan herself), so Shades agreed to watch both our kids and hers, and let the two of us go out to the signing. It was really fun. He did a reading from his new book, and while I'm not sure if the present world/fantasy mix is what I'm really into, it was intriguing, particularly one exchange between 2 characters, which went as follows: "You asked about the Celts, where they were around here?" Yeah.... I've had nights like that. Anyway - I promised some people I'd post cute kid photos on my weblog. So, in the hopes that you aren't yet sick of maternal gushing, here's some recent snaps of my spawn:    The above are photos of: Kalen enjoying coffee in Jase has been ultra-cute recently, and I caught a short video of him practicing his words. Of course, since I'm the one holding the camera, you have to listen to my voice (which irritates me to no end when I hear it in play-back) as I encourage him to identify shapes in a painting he brought home from school, in an annoying high-pitched singsong voice, and you can barely even hear Jase. Watch it at your own peril. |
| Sun, February 11, 2007 (11:50am) Moo I've been playing in a game of VGA Planets which just started up. It's an old game, turn-based, and I need to switch to the PC (instead of my Mac) everytime I run it, but it's proving to be a lot of fun. Also fun: Discovering native life on a nearby planet. Even more fun: Discovering that the native life is a bovinoid species. Mmm... I always wanted my neighbours |
| Mon, February 12, 2007 (8:15pm) And the suckage continues. Shades has had a day of exceptional suck, too. And gaming tonight (which I was really looking forward to) was called off because our DM has to work Snow removal. So I was gonna have people over to play D&D or some other game, but one of the people I was really hoping to see has had to stay home because her husband got frostbite on the tips of his fingers. (I suppose I really ought to feel worse for her than for myself. Frozen fingers! Arg! Why do men do these things? And will he be okay?) And my Mom just called to say the hospital informed her my brother was admitted for emergency surgery for a perforated bowel. Apparently he's in really, really rough condition. Even if the surgery is successful, he's in pretty bad shape. (But then... HIV will do that to a person. This doesn't come as a huge surprise to those of us who know him.) Gah. Life is full of suck. I have rebelled against the suckage of the day by engaging in fiscal therapy. I bought Miniatures. So there. |
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| Mon, February 12, 2007 (3:20pm) Well. That sucks. After spending 3 hours fighting with the GenCon hotel registration system, what do i have to show for it? Nothing. That's right. We have no hotel to stay at. The 5 or 6 of us who were planning to go to GenCon together, and share a room at the Embassy Suites, will either have to split up and get rooms in different hotels near the Con, or maybe we can all get a suite together in a hotel which is a couple miles away from the Con, or maybe we can get individual rooms at extornional rates at some hotel which is still near enough to be connected via pedway tubes to the Convention center. Because EVERYTHING IS BOOKED already. Maybe we'll just all sleep on the streets. Or maybe I'll have to call our top 3 choice hotels every day between now and August, hoping for a cancellation. Grrrrrrrr.... |
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| Comment (added Feb 13, 2007, 10:55am) Starlin' had this public comment: Actually, sleeping on the streets at GenCon might not be so bad. We've got enough people to set a good rotating watch, it'd give us time for our magic to refresh, and it's really quite warm there that time of year. Plus, while it doesn't provide free breakfast, we could put a tin can out and have me do my leper imitation. Eric begs quite nicely, too... yup, upon sober reflection I think it's the fiscally sensible solution. |
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| Mon, February 12, 2007 (10:50am) I'm sitting here, annoyed that GenCon's hotel reservation system has had an (un)expected glitch, and won't be available until later. So, to kill time, I browsed a few web pages, and tried something I don't usually do - a horoscope meme. (I dislike horoscopes. I think they're silly. But apparently I dislike boredom even more, and think it's even sillier to just stare at a screen which refuses to load. Besides, I find the result amusing.) Here goes (meme stolen from Binary Kitten):
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| Tues, February 13, 2007 (11:45am) Okay, so the suckage didn't extend straight through the day. Some of the Monday night gaming crowd did come over, even though we didn't have 7th Sea to play. We played Seafarers of Catan instead. And I won. That was cool. Plus, Lady Myke brought me a lasagna. Way cool, because it means I don't have to make supper tonight - just throw her lasagna in the oven before we go for swimming lessons. And Shades let me spend money on miniatures. (I mentioned that already, but it still makes me happy today, so I'm mentioning it again. Dwarven Forge miniature environments are fabulous to play with. I also figured out a way to run a Hack & Slash D&D game despite being unable to get a solid group of players to agree on a schedule - we're going to play a Virtual Dungeon. In effect, the players are taking on the roles of people playing a computer game, running a dungeon-delving scenario. That way, if I have a group of 4 players and someone has to go home early, I can say "Player 3 has left the game" and the other players will have to forge on without them. Or we can have those classic moments like in The Gamers when Mark's barbarian character is just standing idle in a big fight scene, because his player has left the room. This set-up could also accomodate guest players, and people re-making their characters if they don't like the current ones. And yes, it could even include the infamous Gnome Barbarian character concept. But I warn you - the monsters may laugh at you on the NPC channel, and send the occasional mocking Tell. BTW - does anyone own a copy of The World's Largest Dungeon which I could borrow? I'm not sure if this is the module I'd want to use... but I don't want to pay $100 to find out whether it is or not. I'd like to give it a look-over, and then either pick up my own copy or ?rent it from a friend. It they have it, that is. Okay... now about the housing situation for GenCon. First, I would like to direct people to the amusing Comment which has been added to the Feb 12 3:20 entry. It made me smile. It also made me realize how very much I don't want to be living on the streets. So what I've done is to call various hotels (was doing that yesterday, too) and I managed to book a room. It's not fantastic. Or rather, the room is fantastic, but it's $360+ US/night kind of fantastic. I got us a 'Concierge Level Suite' with 2 double beds (can accomodate 4 guests, with the possibility of more on the floor, gamer-style) at the Marriott, directly across from the Convention center. Then again, the price is equal to that of renting 2 rooms for $180+/night each, which is the other option. Except it's not really an option, since there are no rooms available anymore. This means we've got a back-up plan, expensive though it may be, while I continue trying everyday to get someplace cheaper, like a room at the Embassy Suites. |
| Thurs, February 15, 2007 (1:15pm) VGAP: Yay! I found another native species on a neighbouring planet. But Boo! These aliens want to eat me! Colonization has been called off for now. Hotel: Things are slowly looking better. Yesterday's hotel availability search came up with only 2 hotels, each of which only had rooms on some of the days of the Con. Today, 5 hotels show up, 3 of which have double-double rooms available for the entire 5 day stretch we're looking for. Unfortunately, they're 8 miles away from the convention center. So, I didn't take them... but the fact that they showed up means people are beginning to cancel reservations. Just need to keep checking on a regular basis. Kids: This morning, after Shades and I did our usual "Have a good day at work, Love." "You too. Drive safe." exchange, Jasen jumped up from his chair, ran to the gate, and waved to his Dad. "Bye bye Daddy!" he said - without any prompting - before dashing back to the table to finish his breakfast. Yay for Social Greetings and language skills and sequencing. Our kid's gonna make a fine 3-yr old. |
| Sun, February 18, 2007 (4:50pm) Quick update on Life, The Universe, and Everything: Shades and I are back from our 10th Anniversary escapade. We spent a night in the most expensive hotel suite I have stayed at in my entire Life. $899, not counting taxes or gratuities. (Wow - that puts the $360/night GenCon hotel into perspective). I must say, though: it was worth it, to celebrate a decade of marriage with the best man in my life... and a few visitors we'd invited along. Well, perhaps more than a few. A couple dozen? I mean, who doesn't want to spend their tenth anniversary with a couple dozen close friends and relatives, eh? Supper was delightful. We went to Sorentinos downtown (after some minor problems with lack of reservations) and enjoyed fabulous cuisine. I had a duo of roast duck, in peppercorn glaze and sour cherry sauce. It was delicious! Everyone had very enjoyable (and expensive!) food, and when it was done, our very good friend "Captain" Mike picked up the tab as an anniversary gift. Thank you, Mike! Speaking of gifts, Starlin' & Hellequin presented to us(/me) The Most Beautiful Sari In The Universe. Ooooh, it is gorgeous! Photos will follow at some point when my camera battery has been recharged enough to download them. Photos will also include Starlin' in the second most beautiful Sari in the Universe, and many fabulous babes (and fabulous gents, too) in party clothes, varying from cocktail dresses to 'Gamer Casual'. It was a wonderfully eclectic evening, for attire. We played board games and RPGs and chatted and laughed until shortly after midnight. Then most of the guests had gone home, and Shades and I had the 2-level suite to ourselves. We went to sleep, on very comfortable, very expensive, sheets. In the morning, we slept in, and then had room service bring us breakfast. That, too, was expensive, and also incredibly tasty. We loitered, watched some TV, read, and otherwise enjoyed a morning without kids. But after a while, we decided to return to the domestic life we love. We did swing past the hospital to visit my brother (he's not looking very well. It would not shock me if there was a funeral before the year is out. Then again, he has a lot of people praying for him, and if he can get over this, he stands a good chance of getting his life back on track again. So, we're hoping, as we always do.) and we picked up some cappuccino-to-go, and chatted about life while we drove. It's been a good ten years. I expect the next ten will be equally challenging, and every bit as wonderful. ... Now, excuse me, I've got to go check if my VGAP results are back yet. Run, Host! Run! |
| Thurs, February 22, 2007 (3:10pm with edits Friday 8:10am) Okay, this is the official announcement: I am running a D&D game on Friday Nights, at our place in the 'Park, and Note: This isn't meant to be rude or exclusive to the guys, running a "female-only" game. It's a chance to play with the gender dynamic and see what direction the game takes under female leadership. (I expect it to be particularly bloodthirsty, myself.) There is the possibility, however, that the group will enjoy inviting the odd male into the group for a session or so, or that they may play as occasional NPCs. So, if you're male (by genetics or choice) and wish to roll up a character anyways, you are welcome to do so. Or, you can play Game of Thrones while we kill orcs in the basement. BTW - if you want to play but can't make it over tomorrow to make characters, don't worry. If you know the rules, you can roll up a character on your own & bring it next time. If you don't, just come early some day when it's convenient, and we'll see what we can put together. |
Thurs, February 22, 2007 (2:45pm)     
Pictures, as promised. Click for larger & more detailed photos. (The thumbnails don't show the whole thing, and you won't get the full effect of the Sari'd Trio unless you click!) |
| Thurs, February 22, 2007 (1:50pm) Okay, I was trying to comment on a friends' weblog, but for some reason Blogger won't let me post a comment. So, I figured I'd reply here, since it was really something I wanted to address. - - - (from The Grey Panther Show, Sunday Feb 18)I think the most honest answer I can come up with is: Sorry :( It was poor communication on our part, coupled with healthy dose of bad planning. The original concept behind 'Anniversary Con' was to have open gaming, a la Gen Con style. People could drop in, drop out, go for food, come back later, whatever, over the course of the afternoon and evening. Most specifically the evening (after 7pm) because that's when we figured most of our gamer friends would be available. However, there were a couple other activities planned by other friends for that evening (The Crown of Thorns game in particular, even though it was sadly cancelled) which would have kept people from dropping by after 7pm. We hadn't wanted to force people to make the choice between going to their game or dropping by to visit us, after all. So we figured if we invited people earlier (around 3) then some people could come early and hang out for a bit before going home for supper and then the game, while others would come later. Supper forays were planned in a casual way (one of the emails we'd sent out suggested we'd probably break for supper around 5, and meet back later) but it wasn't communicated well. What ended up happening, was over a dozen people showing up and assuming that Shades and I would have made reservations for everyone (without even knowing in advance how many to plan for or when they would arrive. How were we supposed to do that?) on the post-Valentines weekend. Okay - I'd totally forgotten it was the weekend after Valentine's Day, and that all the good restaurants would be full. My Bad. I also had no idea that so many people would be coming before 7pm. I'm thrilled that people did so! I just wasn't expecting it. After all, normal gamer nightlife doesn't really start until after 7pm. I didn't mean to let our guests down. I feel awful that anyone came away with that impression. I will, however, take the anonymous poster's comment of, "Just something to think about" to heart: If we ever hold another 'Anniversary Con', we will give much more thought to actually planning the event in a useful way, instead of just letting it happen. We will also communicate the intent of the event more clearly, so no one is left in the lurch. Or left waiting at the hotel for us. Or left standing in the lobby of Sorentinos with the Maitre D looking down his nose at them and their 6 friends, muttering, "Aaaand exactleeee how manyeeee ov you ahr zhere?" But just as a note, I think the look on the Maitre D's face will be preserved in my memory as one of the highlights of the event. He was pricelessly pompous. |
| Mon, February 26, 2007 (12:50pm) My Baby is Three! Time flies when you're having fun. (And also when you're running in circles after Autistic/Aspergers children, while trying to balance a job, housekeeping, and what remains of a social life. But really, that passes for fun too, these days.) Jasen appears to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that it's his birthday today. I'm making a cake for after supper, but decided not to throw a big party this year. Things are a little too rushed between busy weekends, work shifts, and special outings (we took the kids to both the Muttart Conservatory and Telus World of Science this month, in addition to swimming twice a week and play dates at Millienium Place indoor playground.) Toss in the fact that I am trying to get everything organized before I go to Vancouver in a couple days, and I decided a party was one bit of stress I could live without. Anyway, here's a quick picture of my little 3-yr old, taking time to stop & smell the flowers, during our recent trip to the Muttart Conservatory:  |
| Wed, February 28, 2007 (9:00am) Vancouver Mmm, I'll be having dinner in Vancouver tonight, with Starlin', and probably Annan too. It feels very surreal. I half expect something terrible to happen between now and then, because c'mon, a nice trip with no kids and lots of time to relax or sleep in or just read a book for one - maybe even two! - uninterupted hours? That's gotta go against some cosmic law. Lots of things to do before getting on the plane, though, so I'd better get packing. I apologize in advance to people in the VGAP games, that I won't be able to get my turns in. Feel free to run a turn of each without me, Bregon. If I somehow get access to a machine capable of playing VGAP out in Vancouver, I'll let ya know. (Hey, Annan! Do you run on a PC? If so, could I install a very small game on your computer for the weekend?) See you all after the weekend! |
